Canadian features, VR projects to world premiere at Tribeca

Barry Avrich's documentary Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World will bow at the New York festival, as will a new project from Felix & Paul Studios.

Two Canadian features will have their world premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York this April.

Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World, written and directed by Barry Avrich (pictured), will debut in thefestival’s Spotlight Documentary program. The film, produced by Avrich’s Toronto-based Melbar Entertainment Group, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the contemporary art world.

Also bowing at the festival is Clay Staub’s directorial debut, Devil’s Gate. The film, produced by Montreal’s Caramel Films and L.A.-based Mednick Productions, will premiere in the festival’s late-night Midnight program. The film follows an FBI agent sent to North Dakota to investigate the disappearance of a local woman and her young son. The film shot in Winnipeg in the spring of 2015 and was financed privately and with the assistance of provincial tax credits.

The Tribeca Film Festival, which runs April 19 to 30, will screen 98 feature-length films this year. The festival reduced the overall size of its program by 20% this year to make its slate more selective. The Toronto International Film Festival also announced recently that its upcoming festival slate would be cut by 20%, after being criticized for being “too big.”

Tribeca also announced its VR and Storyscapes exhibitions, which will run concurrently throughout the Festival.

Of the 23 projects selected for the Virtual Arcade, only one is from Canada. Felix & Paul Studios’ The People’s House will world premiere in New York. The VR experience takes you inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama serving as the viewer’s guides.

Meanwhile, Toronto-based Jordan Tannahill’s Draw Me Close will bow in the juried Storyscapes program, which selects projects that bridge film, technology and storytelling. Tannahill’s collaboration with the U.K.’s National Theatre and National Film Board of Canada combines live performance and animation to tell the story of his relationship with his mother in the wake of her terminal cancer diagnosis.